#3.04 analysis

[foxmagpie]

What do you think both Beth and Rio were thinking in that 3x04 scene? Beth is so hard to read here so is Rio? What are your thoughts?

i'm assuming you mean this scene, anon (if not, I've talked about the bar scene a lot. Once i answered what i think they did while waiting for the paper to dry, but i don't really agree with anything i said there anymore, haha.

there, i basically say that i think that beth tried to come up with something to talk about, while rio enjoyed watching her squirm, and they talked a little—mostly beth walking him through what she was doing.

now, i don't think they spoke at all, and i don't think they were in those headspaces, exactly.

the scene is really erotic, and that's always been obvious with the choice of song, but i think they're clearly in that headspace physically.

when beth walks into the backroom, i think she is truly terrified. i think rio's gun means something again, even if he's no longer able to use proximity or physically imposing on her judging by the way he leans over the table, gun against the wood (this isn't him yanking her to him and pressing the cool metal against her face, mouths inches apart, breathing heavy). and i do think rio wants her to feel that way—i think it's important for him that she feel that way. after all, he's trying to re-establish power—something beth doesn't seem to realize he feels he's lost the moment he wondered if that pregnancy was real and ended up sparing her life.

but beth's fear and rio's anger shift and mutate as rio watches and beth's good. and as beth starts to realize he knows she's good, i think being watched become kind of thrilling. he's seeing her, and it still does something to her. and i think the fact that that's laced with the fear intrigues her, and rio likes that it intrigues her. he's still enjoying being in the position of looking, of judging, but he's thinking of her in that way again—symbolized by his hand lifting off the gun to weave together in his lap—and i think that, at least for a bit, his anger towards her gets replaced at anger towards himself for being impressed, for being proud, for being attracted to her still, after everything.

this reminds me that i actually started scribbling down a side-by-side pov fic where both of them immediately go and separately and furiously masturbate as soon as it's over, each of them playing out a slightly different sexy powerplay fantasy—both of them beginning with imagining themselves having it, but coming when they each imagine the other snatching the power back, because at the core of it, they both find the game too good.

[foxmagpie]

I rewatched the s3 bar scene where Beth tells Rio she lost the baby. Omg I didn't remember how emotional he seemed in this moment !! What do you think of then in this scene (love your analysis) and also do you think he believes her about being pregnant and the miscarriage ?

I LOVE THAT SCENE SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!

I think it is wide open for interpretation, but I’m inclined to think that in the end, he did believe her—but barely. 

I think if he disbelieved her entirely, he would’ve killed her in 3.03, but there was just enough doubt for him to hold off. Personally, I headcanon that he spent those 2-3 weeks stewing and ramping himself back up, and Rhea suggested that he take her to get an ultrasound and arranged the appointment herself after Beth saw her at soccer practice.

in the clinic scene, I think Rio’s convinced himself that she’s absolutely lying and that he’s going to catch her in it (and her fearful behavior confirms it) and it will finally be over. I think he’s giddy because he’s certain that he’s right and then the doctor’s confirmation of the pregnancy pulls the rug out from underneath him. Since Rhea helped him make the appointment, and Beth genuinely didn’t seem to know about it, I think he’s shocked enough to believe that it’s true (but he’s furious about it and isn’t entirely convinced its his, hence “paternity test”).

When she shows up and confesses that there’s no baby, I think he probably concedes that there maybe never was, but I think he had believed her just enough to have to grapple with his feelings for her—past and present—and I think the time dulled his rage and exhausted him. I sort of read his, “When?” And Beth’s, “Does it matter?” as some sort of acknowledgment that he doesn’t even have the energy to press her on the lie, because he realizes, no, it doesn’t—because now she’s here, and now he has no reason not to kill her. So he takes a shot of tequila to give himself liquid courage because he thinks he still has to do it but he doesn’t want to. 

When Beth asks what happens next and Rio says, “Nothin’ good,” I don’t think he just means for her. I think he knows the toll it’s going to take on him. The emotion that rolls of Rio in that scene to me is resignation. She’s dangerous to him and Rio can’t and won’t give her the power of reversing his decision on his own—it would reveal far too much. 

So he lets her give her pitch, and he rejects it at first (“yeah, you don’t know my interests” and “you couldn’t afford it”) to maintain the illusion that he is disinterested in an alternate path, but he concedes at the promise of money, firming up Beth’s belief that that’s what he loves most in the world. Through a combination of tunnel vision, desperation, confusion, and repression, she never even stops to think that in this case, I think money has very little—maybe even nothing—to do with it.